A Long Overdue Update

Well, it's certainly been a while, that's for sure. I've got a completely legitimate explanation: I'm taking 17 credits this semester. Some of my friends are going through totally intense stuff. Really, the only reason that I'm posting something right now is because I'm feeling a little bit lonely, it's midterms, and I don't want to work on my Philosophy of Language paper just yet, even if Frege's a fabulous guy.

Writing's been going pretty well; I realized that if I write stories that are closer to the truth--such as the one I just wrote called Berkeley, California--I should try to write them in the third person. I should also try elongating them, as my story will be end up being carried more by plot than character. I turned an intense portfolio of work for a competition here at school for the Creative Writing department, so now a bunch of my works are in tip-top shape, which is GREAT! This includes the titles Red, Strange English, The Naked Diner, I'm Just Joking, and Sleeping with Scarlett. I was describing the stories to a friend of mine and I realized just how bizarre my stories can seem sometimes. Anyways, I had a friend look over a couple, and she asked, "Why aren't you a creative writing major?" That's always totally flattering. But, hey, philosophy and comparative literature make my writing more wonderful than creative writing classes, and that's about it.

I bought the 2008 Pushcart Prize on Amazon.com, as well as Mary Gaitskill's short story collection Bad Behavior (published by Vintage--I found out about her reading an article about her in Poets and Writers Magazine). Anyways, the collection of Puschart Prize stories was actually quite horrendous...the writers certainly had good ideas, but the stories felt ridiculously unpolished, messy, rushed...I was very shocked that they had won such prestigious awards. Perhaps I know too many amazing writers here, because I felt like they certainly could have written the prize-winning poems, and that they had some skills that the prize-winning stories were lacking. (To be fair, I've only read the first three stories and the first three poems.) Mary Gaitskill's short story collection, however, is absolutely amazing. She's wonderful. Her writing is clean and thoughtful, and intricately beautiful. It's also very disturbing. I'm a little bit over halfway through the collection, and I'm very grateful for the writing she's given to the world. As for the magazine I just mentioned, I bought a subscription because the one I bought randomly after a dinner out of town at the Barnes & Noble was totally fabulous.

I'm working a lot on philosophy, which certainly makes my writing far more organized and logical. I'm taking three classes, although one of them is a private reading. Plato's really great--I'm reading Republic and it's very beautiful, although it's got some contentious issues (just like any philosophy, but I would even say more than usual). So, that's my Ancient Philosophy class. I'm also taking a Philosophy of Language class, which is totally mindblowing, so it's great (although a little bit confusing). Aaand I'm taking a private reading in the Epistemology of Emotions with Professor D. Ganson, which is totally great. So I'm writing a bunch this weekend.

My Honors project is going fabulously, but anyways, I'm getting very distracted by a friend, so I'm going to go! And get dinner!

Adieu!

Sleeping With Scarlett, etc!

So, I finished Sleeping With Scarlett, and sent it to friend whose opinion I respect--they really liked it, so that's great. Here's an excerpt:

She shook her head, smiling. “I slept with you for no professional reasons. I just liked you.” The waitress put a candle on our table as they dimmed the place again. Scarlett nodded towards my kir and I nodded back. I handed over the glass and she tried some. “Kind of sweet,” she said after taking a large gulp. “Like you, when I saw you the first time, back at the museum.”

I still have to edit it, but anyway, this is great news! This means that I only have to finish up The Disease and I'll have the rough draft of my Los Angeles/ Strange English short story collection done! After that there will be the rough-rough final draft, the rough final draft, and then the final draft, which is only really temporary, depending on the effect of the passing of time on the work.

As for all my other projects, I'm following what was planned in the last post--except, I want to finish the very beginning draft of my Honors project introduction by New Years. So, that and the short story collection have priority. I'm almost done reading the Allende.

Honors, Papers, and Sleeping with Scarlett

So! I got accepted for Honors! I keep remembering it and it feels sooooo unreal! It was way scarier than any sort of place I've applied for publication, because, as opposed to just judging only my writing, people looking at my application were also judging my work ethic and my ability, and eventually, me. So I'll be workin' mah ass off next semester and the one after, especially since I'll be finishing up two majors. But I'll have a summer inbetween to work, too, if I need it. I'm going to be translating a book and then I'm going to be writing an Honors paper. Yikes! Michael and I can angst together, although his will probably be super-hard--he's going to Honors in philosophy.

Papers--I'm putting together currently a really intense paper on Marguerite Duras' The Lover and it's totally driving me crazy. I'm writing about something that I've found impossible to find in JStor. I'm a little scared that it might totally suck, but at the same time, it's a totally badass idea.

Sleeping with Scarlett is going well. I'm going to translate it into French to show the un-translability of things ultimately in a presentation for my conversation class. Oh, man. What a sad story. It's totally my goodbye to Paris, too...I can tell I'm really going to miss this place. Excerpt time:

“Oui,” I said, practicing the native language. “Let me just get my tie on.” I took out a green one from the fake wood drawers, where I kept a couple watches and some spare condoms.

“Real men don’t wear ties anymore,” she said, grabbing the tie from my hands and throwing it back in the drawer. After sex, we walked over to the nearby Metro stop and we took the eight line to Bastille. It was a little cafe she said she had come across, where people recognized her but weren’t rude and wouldn’t ask her for anything, except the three euros sixty for a hot chocolate. She ordered her usual chocolat chaud, and I ordered a kir d’alsace, some sweet wine.

“So I’m leaving tomorrow,” she said, sipping her chocolate slowly.

Work so far!

Okay, well, I finished part I of the magical realism novella much faster than I thought I would. My friend who is very picky about fiction she likes--and knows a lot about magical realism--read it and loved it. So that's a good sign! It's called The Beasts We Knew, and takes place from 1860s-1920s Spain and Connecticut, two quite different places. And there might be a short stop in England, but I'm not sure. So, I can send that off to Spiral on Monday. Alyssa's going to take a look at it, who has done lots of work in genre fiction, so that will be helpful, too.

Here's a little something from it (yes, I've been sucking at putting up excerpts lately, so I'm starting again):

I never believed any of those stories they told when I was younger, when I was intent on growing up, but suddenly, I was with child, and when I gave light to a baby boy, I knew that there was something within him that I could never let go. I was fifteen years old and being a mother had made me more beautiful. It doesn’t matter who the father was, only that I wasn’t one of those girls who made up stories about ghosts or gods. His father wasn’t human at all, and ghosts and gods as any Católica knows are very human, and that’s why people make them up, because all humanity wants is more and more of us. I never told anyone about his father, and whenever asked about it, I would give very human descriptions without giving any lies: big hands, strange smile, wouldn’t take no for an answer. They just smiled and looked at me like I was the monster.

Currently, I'm finishing up the short stories in the Los Angeles collection: Los Angeles, The Disease, and Sleeping with Scarlett. Today, Sleeping with Scarlett seems to be the biggest focus. I'm considering translating it into French (it takes place in Paris) for my conversation class, but, we'll see about that. It would be exciting to talk about Scarlett Johansson's body in French. Totallay. Duffy's great to listen to for working on this. Here's a little something from that, too:

“Oh,” she said in her low voice. “Oh,” she repeated. I couldn’t stand looking at her and walked away, fingering my pockets for a second cigarette. I was a cameraman. Moving things like this woman I walked away from shouldn’t be burning into my eyes the way she was. But the important thing is, that’s what she was doing. And that meant something. I headed for the doors as fast as I could and took a taxi home. The Paris sky, that meant something too.

I'm hoping to have all the Lost Angeles short story stuff finished by Sunday, so that I can start to focus on my new projects.

That is all!

Current Projects

So, now that I got all midterms and travels to Barcelona and the Honors Application finished, I've got some low-stress projects I'm working on. Going to be

-finishing up part one of the magical realism novella (I'm working on it so that I can submit each section of the three for a serial publication in Spiral)
-continuing to edit the botany story
-considering writing up a screenplay version (or a musical version?) of Socrates on a Plane, but in the 50s...
-finishing up the stories in Los Angeles (Sleeping with Scarlett and The Disease)

So, it's really just all some catching-up work. I hope I get this all done by the time I head over to Uruguay, so that I can continue some serious work on the botany story when I get there.

If the Honors proposal gets accepted, I'll be starting working on the Benedetti translation in the spring! If not, I'll probably be working on that during the summer.

That's all!

Oh, and wait, I wanted to advertise something my friend put together: http://iomoth.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/photocomic-incomplete-from-summer-2008/

It should take about three seconds to read, and it's very good!

Suddenly, everything around me is changing.

I'm becoming more competent at everything: reading, writing, organizing my time, dealing with writer's block and just writing, writing, writing, reading, reading. I think it's a couple things: (1) I'm really homesick, (2) I visited two museums this weekend and (3) getting more fluent in my other languages is having an astounding impact on my English.

It all started with the Centre Pompidou. As a result of said museum, I finally started on 'Sleeping with Scarlett,' a short story about beauty (and, yes, Scarlett Johansson) and just aesthetics in general (I would love to show it to a philosophy prof sometime who won't judge me for the popular icon use--or perhaps I will and change their mind). I also worked a little bit on 'The Disease,' which is a reaction to a kind-of-well-known short story a friend sent me a while ago--it involves a lesbian and an oxygen tank, and talks about love. And music. I also began work on a serial novella, that I would like to submit through my friend's Oberlin publication, Spiral (I may have spoken about this in my last post...). This novella involves a bunch of crazy stuff, like fate, incest, reputation, curses, love...anything you'd expect from a genre-type story that I write, especially when it's semi-magical realism, in French-thought, Spanish-thought, and English-thought (it takes place in Paris, Montevideo, and a small town in Connecticut).

Today I did some work on some poetry (tried at a sonnet--it's been a while!), reread some old stuff, and worked on some nonfiction that's really hard to get through--I ended up crying a little bit because that's what happens when I face my honest feelings about things. I also printed out the botany story, finally, so I can rewrite it, and the rewriting's going very well. My narrator has a more distinct voice now, and now that I know more what it ends like, I'm adding in little things to the beginning that show that he knows how it's going to end, too (because it's written like a confession). Best of all, this week I had been thinking, and today I finally picked up Benedetti's La Tregua. Finally. I think reading Allende has made more comfortable with my Spanish, and finally, I see the blaze of Benedetti's writing, its sharp beauty, its disturbing sorrow. I'm going to apply to translate that book--if not also others--for an Honors project. He's not translated in English. And I know, I know, oh God, I know that he will be so beautiful in this language.

My goal in all this: Be respectable. Grow up as a writer. Honor literature and language, but most of all...the so many billion ways that humanity can experience itself--in other words, honor life. If I do that, even if I'm not famous, etc, then I will find my life worthwhile. Not just as a writer, but as myself.

PS- I really, really miss philosophy classes.